Page 128 of Kathryn

She could not blame him for sounding bewildered. But how could she ever explain—

“There is no need to weigh your words with me, Kathryn. Give them to me with the bark still on them.”

She chewed her lip. “I will beat you.”

His eyebrows shot up. “You sound quite confident.”

“I am.”

“And that is somehow a bad thing?”

“You will get angry. People always do.”

Rather than refute her claim—another thing people usually did—he pondered her words. After a few moments, he said, “Play me one game. If you beat me and I get angry, we will not play another. But if you beat me—or, lo and behold, I beat you—and I do not get angry then we can play another. Until one of us becomes angry.”

“I don’t get angry.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Katie snorted. “I meant I don’t get angry about chess.”

“Are you so sure?”

“I have never been angry after a chess game.” She paused and then added, “At least not since I was fourteen.” Probably because she had won most of them since then.

“Neither have I,” he said.

Katie stared up into his eerily pale but beautiful eyes and tried to suppress the anxiety blooming in her belly. Life had been good since she had gone to his room that night. Better than good. She loved working at the dig and being outside and not worrying about smudges on her hands or dirt on her hem. She loved the camaraderie at the dig and she adored talking to Dulverton about the curious finds that every day brought. She liked sitting in companionable silence with him in the library every evening.

And she especially loved their nights together.

She did not want all of that to disappear just because she beat him.

You could always lose.

No, she refused to do that—not again.

Or you could try trusting him.

She inhaled deeply, exhaled, and nodded. “Fine. One game.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Gerrit had the oddest impulse to grin like a maniac as he led Kathryn over to the chessboard, but he wisely suppressed it. He had wanted to ask her to play for weeks. Clearly somebody in her past had reacted poorly when they had lost to her. Like anyone else, Gerrit did not like to lose—at anything—but he had done his share of it in chess as well as other competitive endeavors and liked to think he had always behaved in a sportsmanlike manner.

“Have a seat.” Gerrit gestured to the chair where the white pieces had been set up.

“No, we choose for it.” She picked up a white and black pawn and put her hands behind her back for a moment before holding out her closed fists.

Rather than argue Gerrit tapped her right hand: it was white.

“You first,” she said, taking a seat behind the black.

Gerrit sat and then moved his queen pawn forward two spaces.

She moved her king’s knight to bishop three.

Gerrit moved the queen’s knight to queen’s two.